


the Red of Your Blood

by bucketmouse



Series: Take My Hunger (Pynch Vampire AU) [1]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Blood Drinking, Hand Jobs, M/M, Minor Character Death, Near Death Experiences, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychic Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-11
Updated: 2016-12-14
Packaged: 2018-09-07 22:17:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8818288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bucketmouse/pseuds/bucketmouse
Summary: In a different universe, Robert Parrish pulls a gun on his son instead of striking him in front of their trailer that fateful day, and Ronan Lynch has to act quickly to save him. Vampire AU, will update tags with new chapters as needed.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks as always to asael and notraelet for their encouragement and beta reading!

Adam had expected a confrontation when he opened the door. Yelling, absolutely. Physical blows, almost certainly. He didn't know what for, it could be any number of things. Being late. Being alive. Simply being Adam Parrish and continuing to exist was a crime worthy of harsh punishment, but it was one he was familiar with. 

Seeing his father holding the gun Adam knew he had was a new problem, one Adam was wholly unprepared for. He felt the brief weightlessness of panic, of finding there was one more step at the bottom of a staircase you had not accounted for. Just enough time to know you were going to stumble but not enough to do anything about it. 

The gunshot hit Adam in the stomach and he stumbled back, down the staircase leading up to the door of the double-wide, his back slamming into the dirt of the driveway. There was a dull whine screaming in his ears, blocking out all other sounds. From his dimmed peripheral, he saw the red tail lights of Ronan’s BMW, so bright they easily overpowered the soft cold glow of the few stars that could be seen above Henrietta, twinkling in and out against the deep blue sky. With great effort, he brought his hand up to touch at the wet spot on his stomach. He was more cold than anything. _‘I'm going into shock,’_ Adam thought, pressing for the calm and reasonable to quell the panic, mentally running over the symptoms and examining each as clinically as he did with his own anger. He was going into shock. He was losing a lot of blood.

He was dying.

Something hit the ground next to him, a heavy thud pressing through the fog of Adam’s desperately working mind. He struggled to turn his head enough to catch the sightless eyes of his father staring blankly back at him. 

A few feet away, the rest of his father sprawled out on the dry crab grass and weeds that passed for a yard, a bloody stump ending where his neck had previously attached to the aforementioned head.

Adam didn't feel sad, or angry, or much of anything. He had lost too much blood to manage more than a mental _‘oh,’_ along with the idle rationale that at least he wouldn't have to emotionally and mentally cope with that. He didn't have enough time left.

“Parrish - _come on,_ Parrish, stay with me!” the voice of Ronan Lynch cut through the haze as well, and Adam felt a harsh tug at his arm before he was lifted easily from the ground. Ronan’s blue eyes blazed brighter than the stars, like the tail lights of his car. Knowing the inhuman abilities his friend had and witnessing them first hand were such starkly different things. Ronan rarely made a show of what he could do, unlike Gansey who often seemed unable to not. 

Adam wasn't certain what Ronan was intending to do as he carefully placed Adam in the passenger seat and buckled him in, dropping the seat down so he could lay back. Adam thought he could probably make it to a hospital while he was alive, but he would be too far gone for them to do anything but make it painless. Maybe not even that. Also, he was getting blood all over Lynch’s car.

Ronan grabbed his own Aglionby sweater from the back seat and pressed it against Adam’s stomach, ordering him to hold it there. Adam wondered what Ronan intended to do about it if he didn’t agree, but he didn’t want to spend the last moments he had arguing with Ronan Lynch, so he complied. 

Ronan didn’t bother to buckle himself in - as soon as he had thrown himself into the driver’s seat and slammed the car door, he was gunning the engine. Forest and farmland passed in a moon-drenched blur, only the tops of the trees visible from the window that Adam could see out of. As they left the main populated areas the stars seemed to get brighter. 

They were so beautiful. Blue would love this. She seemed to love the stars so much. 

He was cold, and Ronan’s sweater was beyond saving. Some people didn’t understand how to take care of things. 

The trees outside the window had come to a stop, which Adam supposed meant the car itself had stopped. He didn’t see the multi-level hospital that was just outside of downtown Henrietta, only trees.

He tried to blink away the blurring from the corner of his vision to no avail while he heard the driver’s side door open and then slam shut again, only to have Ronan at Adam’s side, pulling him out of the car with too much urgency to be particularly gentle. It was faintly annoying but Adam also rationally knew there was little point for gentleness now. It wouldn’t make his injury less septic. It wouldn’t make him less shot. 

The passenger car seat of Ronan’s BMW was clearly ruined. Ronan wouldn’t even have to consider the cost to fix it. Adam was so annoyed. 

“Why…?” he’d meant to ask why they were here, but the rest of the words fell to the wayside as Ronan pulled Adam to carry in his arms, draping one of Adam’s arms around his shoulders for balance. 

“I’m better here,” was all Ronan said, as if it made sense - and it did after a fashion. They were at the strange forest that Gansey and Ronan had taken him and Blue to before. It was beautiful even at night time. Perhaps more so. 

Adam was laid down upon the soft grass under the trees, their branches creating shade from the bright light of the stars and moon even while they allowed some light to gently peek through their leaves. Adam took a shaking breath as he looked up at them. This was a very beautiful place to die.

How thoughtful. 

Gansey would have probably apologized. Ronan did not. He gave Adam no warning at all before gently tilting his head to the side, leaning down to lick at a stripe of skin right over Adam’s carotid artery, then sinking his sharp fangs in. 

It hurt only for a moment, only the barest bit. The shock cutting through the fog of death creeping into Adam’s mind, and something about the vampire’s saliva dulled the pain. Once or twice Adam had let Gansey feed from his wrist. Gansey had always been terribly careful about the ordeal, never went for the neck. 

It never felt like Ronan’s bite felt. 

Adam couldn’t _think_ , couldn’t _focus_ as Ronan’s fangs withdrew, his tongue lapping at the wound again before he began to suck there. Deep needy gulps of what little remained of Adam’s blood that wasn’t spilled all over his car, and in an instant the cold that had spread through Adam’s body had vanished under a wave of almost unbearable heat. Adam blindly reached upward, his hand finding the back of Ronan’s head, fingertips brushing against the stubble of hair there and using new found strength to pull him closer and encourage the feeding. He thought he heard Ronan let out a curse muffled against his skin, felt him shift his position above Adam, slide his hand under Adam’s neck to hold so gently, licking and sucking his life away.

That was fine. If he was going to die then let him die this way, with this euphoria greater than anything he’d ever felt. 

Adam wanted to cry out when Ronan pulled back, his mouth rimmed red with Adam’s blood. He wasn’t quite dead yet, the blissful feeling was still with him but he didn’t want to lose it. He felt on the cusp of something more intense than he’d ever felt before - maybe he did cry out with the way Ronan’s eyes seemed to darken, a mixture of desperation and desire Adam had never seen in his face before. Never seen in anyone’s face before when they were looking at _him_. 

“C’mon Parrish, don’t fucking die on me yet,” Ronan growled, bringing his own wrist up to his mouth to tear the skin open there with one of his fangs. The other hand at the back of Adam’s neck pulled him up with as much gentleness as he could manage, just enough so that it was easier to bring his wrist to Adam’s lips. He didn’t need to say to drink, his intentions were clear. 

From the shadows of the trees above them, Adam could swear he heard whispers. Echoing, formless, promising great things. Great power if he would help. Deals and trades and things long forgotten. A hand for a hand, an eye for an eye. A life for a life.

Why not?

What did he have to lose?

Adam wasn’t even certain he had a choice, not really. Gansey had asked him in the past, if he wanted to be changed. Then later if he asked if Adam would allow it, practically begging when Adam had shown up with bruises he couldn’t hide. Each time Adam had turned him down, had wanted to live his life on his own terms. The moment Ronan Lynch’s blood touched his lips it felt like no choice at all. Just a taste, then practically a compulsion the need was so great to taste it again. He licked at the bleeding wound, desperate to not lose even a drop before sealing his mouth over it. It felt like his arms had new found strength to them as he grabbed at Ronan’s offered wrist to pull it closer, a sound escaping his throat somewhere between a whine and a growl. The all consuming warmth he’d felt before was a candle compared to the inferno this set off inside of him. 

He heard the distant sound of Ronan’s breath catching, letting out a faint hiss of something Adam felt certain wasn’t pain. He didn’t know how he knew but he _knew_. Like he knew his own face reflected back upon him staring into a lake. He was starving, and nothing in the world had ever tasted so good, felt so satisfying as Ronan Lynch’s offered blood. He remembered how good it felt to have Ronan’s mouth on his neck, how different it felt compared to Gansey feeding from his wrist and an idea seized into Adam’s mind. He was like a man possessed, a base need leftover from centuries past fueling him as he pushed Ronan back then down upon the ground with a shocking ease. 

“Parrish,” Ronan said with a gasp, silenced as Adam threw a leg over his waist, gripped at the fabric of his dark shirt, and leaned in to bite at his neck. Adam’s fangs were not yet grown but he could feel them growing, waiting for them to come in simply wasn’t an option so blunt teeth worked against Ronan’s skin needy and famished until one got sharp enough to catch and rip - it was messy, likely painful, but Ronan’s hand only found Adam’s hair to tangle in and pull him closer in encouragement.

Ronan’s blood spilled against the skin of his neck and Adam lapped that up as well, sucked every trace of it off before sucking at the tear he’d made. He wasn’t in control of himself, of the sounds of need he was making as he took all that Ronan offered him. It was even better than before, he could feel Ronan’s blood inside of him, making him stronger, filling him up in places he never knew were empty. It felt like his heart was stuttering in his chest, faster and faster until it would burst, infected with the speed that ran through Ronan Lynch’s blood. All the while, the whispers at the back of his mind, the voices seeming to come from the trees themselves encouraging the act. 

Adam practically collapsed when he’d had all he could, just enough energy to shift to the side so he wouldn’t fall literally on top of Ronan but instead onto the grass next to him. Adam couldn’t even rightly feel like he was truly full, just sated for the moment, gasping from the exhaustion after the euphoria had crested and faded into a warm afterglow. He felt more relaxed and at peace than he ever had in his life right there on the forest floor, eyes tracing the moonlight’s shadows that washed out what little color was on Ronan’s skin, stained here and there with red from either his own blood or Adam’s, the black of his clothing hiding any that spilled on the fabric. 

He wanted to stay awake, he wanted answers, but Adam felt his eyelids drooping against his will. Ronan was looking at him, and he was certain he heard something consoling - that it was natural to feel tired, that his strength would return soon, but Ronan’s mouth hadn’t moved at all. Somehow it still felt comforting, and Adam was not afraid when the darkness gently took him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooo yeah if it's not obvious, Gansey and Ronan are vampires, Blue is like she is in the books, and Adam was human until like an hour ago. Noah's still a ghost. I have the other characters figured out as well but not sure if I'll write more of this AU and bring them in yet. Only the main 5 are relevant to the four chapters of this work.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adam wakes up a changed man.

Adam came back to a dim haze of consciousness in Ronan’s car. The seatbelt held him in the passenger side where he laid with Ronan’s coat around him. It was still dark out, and from the reclined position he could see the roof of Monmouth, hear an argument outside of the car. The words were muffled, but he could tell it was Gansey and Ronan. 

Even as Adam occupied himself with peeling the bloodstained and ripped fabric of his t-shirt up from his stomach, he knew what he’d find. He had to see for himself, though. Had to see it with his own eyes.

No hole, no gunshot, nothing. Dried blood, certainly, but delicate prodding of where the torn skin had been revealed no trace of what had caused it aside from the hole in his shirt it left behind. 

He still felt exhausted. 

With a little work he managed to get the seatbelt off, to pull the handle at the BMW until it opened. Before he could fall on his face out of the car Ronan was there, strong arms around him to help him to his feet before Gansey was at his other side to help keep him steady. 

“I’m fine,” Adam said stubbornly. He didn’t miss the glare Gansey shot Ronan.

“ _Clearly._ You’ll be tired for the first few days while your body gets used to the changes,” Gansey said, giving a nod forward. Both him and Ronan helped Adam towards the stairs. Either of them could easily carry him without assistance, he was aware it was an act of sparing his pride to let him walk on his own two legs and only have them for balance. “You can use Noah’s bed, we’ll put up the black out curtains until we can get you something to let you survive daylight.” 

Right, daywalking was no inborn ability, when he first found out about Gansey and Ronan they had said something about enchantment and witches. Ronan’s leather bands and Gansey’s fancy watch, if Adam remembered correctly. Exacts attempted to slip away from him but he stubbornly held on nonetheless. He felt it again, a feeling of confirmation of his suspicions - yes the bands, yes the watch - but there were no words, and the thoughts were not his own. 

“You’re going to get in trouble for this Ronan, you’re supposed to give people a _choice._ There’s protocol,” Gansey lectured as Ronan shoved the door to the loft above Monmouth open, letting the three of them crabwalk through to make it without letting go. 

Rapid explanations flitted at the edge of Adam’s mind. _’Like I care about their rules’_ _’They can suck my dick’_ _’He would have died’_

Ronan said nothing, just helped Adam into Noah’s vacant room, into the unused bed there.

“We’ll get you a change of clothes and cleaned up when you wake,” Gansey assured Adam, all poise and confidence. “Just let yourself sleep for now - it’s what your body needs most of all. You’ll be hungry again soon enough.” 

Adam said nothing, just closed his eyes and let them leave him alone in the room while they searched for the black out curtains to hang over the one small window. Even so, Adam struggled to stay awake, to try and make sense of what had just happened. What was currently happening. ‘Tired’ was not the word for it, Adam lived his life in a state of tired, this was a lethargy that sank deep down into his very bones as if he’d been drugged into it.

He thought, as clear and carefully as he could, _’Ronan?’_

The buzz of thought and energy at the back of his mind briefly dimmed, stilled, and then ever so softly was the answering reply of _’Yeah?’_

_’Just checking.’_

 

Adam had dreams mixed in with what he was fairly certain was sensory input from the wakeful Ronan. Tense conversations with Gansey about what this meant. The strange sensation of looking down at himself, passed out in Noah’s bed in the blacked out room, of seeing himself being cleaned of the worst of the mess on his stomach and face while only dimly feeling it. Gansey taking his cheap old watch off, telling Ronan he wanted Adam to have something familiar to be enchanted, to tell Adam that when he wakes if Gansey isn’t around (“You know he probably knows already, right?”) Blue coming over at Gansey’s call to hear the news, to check on Adam herself. They heavy bass of Ronan’s shitty EDM blasting through his headphones while he fed his raven but still so carefully kept that connection to Adam open on his end as well, ‘listening’ for any sign of consciousness. A few times they touched briefly there in that space beyond the physical, a questioning brush of not really fingertips from Adam against Ronan’s back, the feeling of Ronan reaching back to squeeze his hand reassuringly and ease him back into deeper sleep. The sensation of being assured that he was safe without words, with just the feeling of fierce protectiveness and caring that soaked through everything else. 

Feelings that had been there before Adam was his responsibility and partial creation. Deep roots from a quick growing tree.

 

When Adam awoke, hunger gnawing at his belly, at his very soul, he barely had time to sit up and tug his ruined shirt off before the door was opening. Ronan was backlit against the main room of Monmouth only briefly before he slid inside and closed the door behind him. Thanks to the thick black out curtains there was almost no light in the small room but Adam could see him as perfectly as if he was standing in direct sunlight, every savagely handsome detail in stark relief. If he stared long enough at the exposed bit of inkstained skin along Ronan’s neck he was certain he’d be able to pick out the individual needle punctures from the tattoo there. 

Ronan’s neck…

There was a jagged healing bruise there, barely a mark at all, just a faint yellowing of skin. 

“... How long…?” Adam asked, his voice rough. He couldn’t draw his eyes away. He felt his mouth watering. 

“‘Bout three days,” Ronan answered, a brief flash of guilt burning out just as quickly as it flared into existence, replaced by a sharp grin. “It’s almost sunset. Enough time to have breakfast.” 

Ronan’s bare feet were almost silent against the floorboards as he crossed the small space to sit next to Adam, tugging his own tanktop off to toss on top of Adam’s discarded shirt. He could see the differences in the individual thread counts between them, feel it acutely in the sheets under his hands. Ronan’s fingertips touched the edge of Adam’s jaw to turn the other boy to face him and look away from the discarded clothing. 

“Don’t lose yourself in the details,” Ronan said, voice quiet. Without words, Adam could feel further reassurance along the invisible connection between them. It happened to everyone, it happened to Ronan the first time too, it’s overwhelming if you focus too much too fast, pay attention to him, _only pay attention to him right now._

Ronan tilted his head to the side, just a bit, just enough to make the offer of his neck clear. Adam’s hunger seemed like a living thing inside of him again. He remembered how good it felt to have Ronan’s mouth on his neck - how good it felt to have his on Ronan’s.

Through that connection, another ripple of feeling.

It had felt just as good for Ronan. 

Even starved as he felt, Adam was more careful, no longer bleeding out on the forest floor or lost in a blood frenzy of the first feed. He prided himself on his willpower and this was no different, no excuse to lose himself even if it was apparently the norm. He tried to do as Ronan did to him, to find the artery, to lick at the skin and let the saliva work in for a moment before going for the bite - just enough to get the blood flowing, another lick to dull any pain that managed to work through the initial preparation for it. 

Ronan’s blood flooded into his mouth as he sealed his lips there and Ronan let out a choked gasp. It tasted just as good as the first time. He wanted more - desperately _needed_ more, hunger threatening to hollow out everything inside of him if he couldn’t fill it up with Ronan right there, right then. Ronan choked out a curse as Adam sucked harder at his neck, steadied himself with his hands at Ronan’s shoulders before throwing any sense of shame to the wind to straddle his lap again and push him down on the bed. It felt good to do, felt _right_ , especially with the chorus that poured into his mind so sudden and unexpected that he wasn’t sure were his own thoughts, or Ronan’s, or Ronan reading his and reflecting them back to him… he needed Ronan inside of him, Ronan’s blood inside of him. Nothing else could come close to bringing him satisfaction.

Like in Cabeswater, Adam only barely felt sated for the time being when he finally pulled away from Ronan’s neck, leaning back against Ronan’s propped up knees as Adam tried to focus through the way his mind was swimming. Ronan’s hand went to his neck to cover the wound there. Without Adam actively sucking on it, the puncture wounds healed within seconds - Adam’s gunshot to the stomach had healed entirely in a few minutes, and the wound from a bite was much smaller. Some blood had still gotten on Ronan’s hand just the same, and the older vampire held it up after a moment to wonder at the slick red glistening there. 

Still slightly dizzy, unthinking, Adam only saw a chance at just a little more and took it. He grabbed Ronan’s wrist with speed unfamiliar to himself, pulling it up to his mouth to eagerly lick every trace of the blood away. As he held Ronan’s index and middle finger in his mouth, teeth gently grazing against the knuckles while his tongue slid between them, their eyes met. Ronan’s darkened with a shock of desire that Adam was suddenly aware of his own reflecting. 

A wave of hunger rolled through them both that had nothing to do with bloodlust, and Adam realized how starved he was in an entirely different way. How starved they both were. 

It took a lot of the questioning out of it. A lot of the hesitation. That shared consciousness, minds as close as their bodies were with Ronan still sprawled on the bed and Adam still straddling his hips, holding Ronan’s hand to his mouth. So much easier to understand each other than themselves, but that understanding shared between them, working on a puzzle together instead of trying to figure it out each on their own.

Adam was, for the first time, known. It was a darkly thrilling feeling, made all the more so for how it was clear that Ronan was aware of that as well. Ever so carefully, all falsely casual, Ronan’s other hand went up to Adam’s hip, fingertips brushing against the skin there to steady him - to just feel him. Even with Ronan’s fingers still in his mouth it felt somehow more illicit. 

He could have it. Right here, right now. They both could have what they wanted. They had connected in every other aspect, it seemed perfectly natural to take the next one. 

Then Adam remembered Blue. 

The worst part was the fire hadn’t even dimmed from his blood. A part of him - and he was certain it was _him,_ no longer lost in the frenzy of bloodlust he was better at distinguishing Ronan’s thoughts from his own - thought that it really didn’t matter if he dealt with that now or later. It did matter though, because even if the only thing Adam Parrish had was his pride, that was his own. 

Ronan swallowed thickly and Adam couldn’t look away from how his throat bobbed with the movement, skin purpled as the only sign left of Adam’s puncture mark from his fangs, already fading into the muddled blue and red and yellow. _Again, again, again_ , his hunger demanded, hunger of every kind within him. The mantra was practically deafening. 

Ronan swallowed again, his eyes never leaving Adam’s as he slid his fingers from Adam’s mouth and traced his thumb along Adam’s bottom lip. The hand at Adam’s hip had gone from a caress to certain and steadying. 

“Let’s get you cleaned up, Parrish. You look like shit,” Ronan said, all casual, voice rough. It might have worked, convinced someone else of disinterest, but Ronan was no liar and moreover Adam could tell his own blood sang for Adam with just as much want, warming him from the inside out. 

 

The sun had gone down by the time they got off the bed and emerged from the room a few minutes later. Ronan felt more than thought or explained that Gansey was out getting something enchanted for Adam, that Noah was wherever Noah went when he wasn’t in the here and now. It was for the moment just the two of them, though Adam was sure there could have been a mosh pit going on outside the room he and Ronan were in and he would have never noticed because he was so occupied with the feeding. 

Adam wanted to ask if it was always like that, but again, he didn’t even need to find the words before he felt Ronan’s consciousness against his own. Yes, in the beginning it’s like this. It gets easier. You get satisfied on less. It stops being a mad frenzy.

Adam wasn’t certain he believed that. Not with what Ronan’s blood did to him. 

Ronan grinned, sharp and wicked and self-satisfied as he pushed open the bathroom door for Adam and gabbed a clean towel from the dryer in there. 

“I’ll be in my room when you’re done,” Ronan said, and it was a strange thing to hear his voice aloud again. 

“You aren’t going to…?”

“What, you need help in here?” it was an offer, with another wicked grin to boot. Though Ronan made it sound flippant Adam had no doubt he was sincere. Whether that was the shared connection or careful observation he couldn’t be certain. 

They would definitely end up doing more than getting clean if Ronan helped him shower, though, and he had to talk to Blue before that, didn’t want to risk Gansey returning to Monmouth in the middle of them sharing that. 

“I’ve got a handle on it,” Adam reassured Ronan instead, taking the offered towel. 

Yes, they both would have a handle on it.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains too much exposition instead of steamy blood drinking. Sorry in advance.

It was a good thing they had waited. When Adam was finally stepping out of the shower and going through the dryer to see if there was any of Ronan’s clothing he could borrow in there, he heard the door to Monmouth opening again and smelled the familiar odor of mint that meant it had to be Gansey. Tugging on a pair of Ronan’s dark and artfully ripped jeans as well as a muscle shirt that just truly felt awkward consider Adam lacked the muscle necessary for it, he stepped out to the main room while still toweling his hair. 

There Adam froze, just for a moment. Gansey was in the main room, certainly, holding Adam’s grubby-banded watch, but he was not alone. There was a tall older woman with him, one of those people who looked so painfully average in every conceivable way it was impossible to be anything other than intentional. Someone else might have forgotten her in an instant but when Adam searched his memory he found he had seen her before around Henrietta once or twice, he had seen her talking to Ronan before. 

Another confirmation rippled through their shared consciousness. Ronan’s door was closed, but upon recognizing the woman Adam was seeing he filled in the gaps of Adam’s knowledge for him. This woman was, effectively, one part social worker, one part cop.

Adam resisted the urge to straighten the shirt, instead trying to affect some of the easy confidence that Gansey and Ronan held. He had been doing this since he first started spending time with the two immortals, and found it surprisingly easy even under her chilling gaze to meet it in return. As if Ronan was right beside him the whole time. 

“Mister Parrish,” she said, voice all calm and business, “I have some questions. If you would be so kind as to answer them, I would greatly appreciate it.”

Gansey’s room didn’t exactly have a lot of seating, so they remained standing. She didn’t give a name and Adam did not ask, she filled him in first with what had happened in regards to his father. Adam had spent his shower trying not to think about it, to put it out of his mind. The only witnesses to the altercation between Ronan Lynch, Robert Parrish, and Adam Parrish had been the three involved. There were reports of a gunshot heard, and Robert Parrish had been found killed with blood from Adam Parrish on the scene. 

She delivered the news as carefully as she could, not without empathy for Adam’s situation. Currently, the story was that a previously untracked cougar had come down from the mountains after Ronan Lynch had dropped Adam Parrish off. Robert Parrish had taken a shot at it after it attacked Adam, but he was unable to hit it before it turned on Robert Parrish and decapitated him. Adam Parrish had, on paper at least, spent the last three days recovering in the hospital from the wild animal attack.

Adam didn’t bother to ask how they could falsify hospital records. That would be easy, from what he’d seen of Gansey and Lynch’s connections. It wasn’t like anyone would have visited Adam in the hospital who didn’t already know the truth as well. As for the death of his father, Adam was surprised to find how little he felt at all. 

He turned the lack of feeling over in his mind, examined it from every angle like he would with his anger. He was still in shock, he decided. The world had moved on for three days while he slept, but for him it had still only been hours. Satisfied, he tucked the feelings away once more until a more convenient time. 

“There is only one matter that needs attending to,” the woman said, breaking Adam away from that train of thought. Ronan’s thoughts in the back of Adam’s mind had gone conspicuously silent as she spoke. “As you may be aware, it is strictly against our laws to create another vampire without obtaining their expressed consent first. There’s affidavits to be filed to ensure that you aren’t making the decision under duress as well. Did Ronan Lynch receive your permission before turning you into a vampire?” 

No, he hadn’t, and Adam knew - not even from Ronan, but from murmurings from Gansey over the months they’d known one another - his punishment would be harsh. Ronan was not a first offender, and this was a grave rule to break. He’d be in trouble for the murder as well but that was a slap on the wrist. Even that was less for the killing and more for the potentially public way it had been done. Creating a new vampire without obtaining proper consent first was one of the worst rules you could break, and while Ronan was still considered a ‘young adult’ he was now officially old enough to know better. 

In Adam’s mind, away in his room, Ronan was still quiet. 

“That’s my fault,” Adam said, without hesitation. “I apologize. I knew there was protocol to follow from what Gansey had told me when he offered in the past, but I was afraid I was dying. I begged him to turn me to save my life. He was only trying to help his friend. If anyone should face punishment for what happened it should be me.” 

Confusion, even a little anger echoed in Adam’s mind. Adam didn’t look towards Ronan’s door but tried to express as hard as possible for Ronan to say nothing, to keep quiet. He was taking a gamble on her empathy but regardless Adam was effectively a newborn and most importantly didn’t have a record. 

The woman frowned ever so slightly, eyebrows knitting together. There it was again, the sympathy. 

“As long as you’re willing to give an official statement declaring that, I think we can look the other way. Desperate times sometimes call for desperate measures. The address on file for you according to your school is-”

“You can send it here, we’ll make sure he gets it,” Gansey interrupted, all winning presidential smiles. “I’m so sorry, I fear I’m to blame partially for this too, I should have filed ages ago about wanting to add another to our coven…” 

Gansey made more smalltalk while he escorted the woman out with a grateful, tense, smile to Adam over his shoulder, and Adam let out a breath he had been carefully holding as soon as the door was closed. If his heart still beat it would have been racing. 

Ronan’s door slammed open and he stalked out, crowding up in Adam’s space, fury in his eyes and emotions raging in wordless swirls of confusion and anger. 

“I don’t fucking need you to lie for me,” Ronan growled. Adam had felt the hurricane of emotion from the main room and was braced for it, tilting his head up to look at Ronan with half-lidded eyes. He had never been afraid of Ronan.

“And I didn’t need you to risk your life to save mine,” Adam countered. “What would have happened to you if I hadn’t lied?” 

Ronan didn’t answer, he didn’t need to. It was there, at the edges - maybe not death, _probably_ not death, but harsh punishment indeed. Inheriting what Niall had left him would be out of the question for the rest of his existence. He would never go home, he would never see any of them again. 

“... You made me,” Adam said, carefully, quietly. “It’s your responsibility to protect me until I can protect myself. You can’t do that if you get thrown into some dark hole and forgotten about.” 

Ronan said nothing as his emotions raged like the ocean during a storm at sea. Adam had always known that everything Ronan felt that wasn’t joy was filtered through anger, but this was the first time he had a first-hand direct connection to the process of it.

Wait, there, right _there_... there was something else. Something else to this.

This, making Adam without obtaining his consent first, it wouldn’t be Ronan’s first offense of _this_ in particular.

Adam didn’t have time to ask about it, only saw the slight widening of Ronan’s eyes as he understood what Adam had felt within him and then the door was opening again and Ronan simply whispered through their mental connection that Gansey didn’t know. 

Before this week, Adam had thought there was nothing about Ronan Lynch that Gansey didn’t know. He was starting to have to re-evaluate that. 

“Sorry about the interruption,” Gansey said apologetically as he returned, closing the door again behind him and coming up to where Adam and Ronan stood, having moved an acceptable distance away from one another to not cause suspicion. Gansey paused for a moment, like he wanted to say something else, maybe thank Adam for covering for Ronan, but instead he let the moment pass by. In just the few hours he’d been conscious (and days he hadn’t), Adam had gotten so used to the silent communication he now shared with Ronan that it seemed strange to not have that with Gansey.

Before this week he would have thought that he was closer to Gansey than he ever had been to another person. 

“You got his watch, right?” Ronan asked, cutting off whatever Gansey wanted to talk about next and instead nodding to Adam’s watch still held in Gansey’s hand. “He’s up and moving, I need to start teaching him to hunt. Gonna go change.”

Ronan turned towards his room without a second look back, closing the door hard behind him, effectively dismissing Gansey from the conversation. Gansey pursed his lips but said nothing though the disapproval radiated off of him in waves. Adam did not need a mental link to see it. 

He took the watch when Gansey offered it, sliding the band over his wrist and securing it there once more. It … felt different, somehow. Almost a small tingle against his skin. 

“It’s enchanted?” he asked curiously, while it felt different it looked no different than it had before. At least, nothing that couldn’t be attributed to having keener eyesight now. 

“Yes, as long as you’re wearing it the sunlight won’t hurt you. It still won’t be pleasant, but you won’t die. Even if you forget it though, as a new vampire it won’t hurt you as badly - the vulnerability to it gets worse the older you get.” 

Adam had remembered Gansey saying something like that before - it had been part of why Gansey theorized that Glendower was buried in some kind of tomb for certain, far away from the reach of the deadly sun. If he had been turned to a vampire the year he was said to be killed that would make him almost six hundred years as one, and that was the most conservative of estimates.

“Anything else I should know?” Adam asked, twisting the watch on his wrist and casting his gaze to Gansey. The other vampire sighed, glancing at Ronan’s still closed door before he looked to Adam again. 

“Quite a bit. I’m sure by now you’ve noticed your…” Gansey held a hand around where his own forehead was, wiggling his fingers a bit as if to indicate a wavelength, “With Lynch.” 

“You could say that. I take it it’s a common thing?”

“Yes. As long as you feed off of his blood you’ll be connected that way. The idea is it helps sires take care of their progeny until they can take care of themselves. Once you become self-sufficient and start feeding on your own, it will fade. You need not have Lynch in your head forever, don’t worry.” A smile quirked across Gansey’s face as he crossed his arms thoughtfully, and Adam couldn’t help returning the smile even as he filed that information away to consider his options. 

“Is there a - does it stop on its own?” Adam asked, “I’m… not certain I’ll take to this quickly.” 

“Oh, no. Don’t worry. Progeny can feed off the blood of their sires indefinitely. Though keeping it up after you no longer _need_ to is considered…” Gansey trailed off, hesitated, and Adam let him flounder for a moment before Gansey picked back up with, “Well, it’s generally assumed your relationship is _not_ familial in nature if you keep that up once you’ve learned to feed yourself, outside of times of great duress and all. Don’t worry, though. ‘Childhood’ lasts quite a long time for us.” 

Adam already knew that Gansey had never fed from his sire except for the time he was changed and that he had effectively been abandoned at birth. He also knew that Ronan’s relationship with his sire was that of father and son, the same as Ronan’s two “brothers” had with Niall as well. For all that many vampire stories were focused around romantic relationships, the only two examples Adam had were platonic ones. 

Neither Ronan nor Adam wanted a familial relationship out of this arrangement. Now that Adam had been so known he wasn’t sure he wanted to hide anymore, even given that option. Especially knowing that feeling was mutual to Ronan. 

That was when Ronan came out from his room again, leather jacket and boots on, his foundling Chainsaw with him. 

“She’s gotta eat every two hours, we’ll be gone most of the night,” Ronan explained when he saw Gansey looking at the young bird. 

“Should I come with you?” Gansey offered, still wary as he looked between Ronan and Adam. 

“No offense Dick, but you’re a shit hunter. Better it’s just me and Parrish,” Ronan said, heading out without a second glance behind. 

Adam shrugged at Gansey, then followed. He knew where Ronan was thinking, Cabeswater, where he had turned Adam to a vampire as well. Adam wondered what that would be like, with the heightened senses now at his beck and call. 

While he was asleep Ronan had gotten the upholstery changed. There was no sign that Adam had been laying in the passenger seat while he bled out from a gunshot wound to the stomach. The car was as immaculate as Ronan normally had it, which admittedly was not terribly, but it no longer appeared as a crime scene. 

“Pretty tempting to just suck the blood out of the seat,” Ronan said with a grin, catching the way Adam examined the car seat. “You tasted good.” 

Adam kept his expression as neutral as possible by habit, not that it did any good. He was pleased and Ronan knew it, could feel it. Could feel that Ronan Lynch, who never fed off of people and complained that they tasted awful even when his opinion was not asked, thought that Adam Parrish tasted good. 

Gratification and embarrassment rolled through Adam both. There was one thing he had to do before they went hunting though, as he looked at the clock on the dashboard and saw that it was still a reasonable hour to bother the living. 

“... Can we stop by Fox Way first?” he asked. He didn’t explain why. Ronan knew. 

 

He probably should have called first. Called ahead, explained, asked, done something more than just shown up on front of Blue’s house after sundown, in Ronan Lynch’s car dressed in Ronan Lynch’s clothes. They’d have to go to the trailer park eventually to get his things, that much was certain. That would require processing complicated feelings he wasn’t sure he was ready to confront yet - speaking with Blue would be hard enough first. 

Ronan gave Adam a questioning look as he killed the engine. He didn’t like the Fox Way house, but he’d go in if Adam wanted him to. Adam shook his head slowly. No, he’d get this on his own. 

He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, really. He knew there wasn’t some anti-vampire part of it or anything like that, Gansey and Ronan came and went just fine to it in the past. He had been invited in before, did that invitation carry over into his new existence or would he need to be invited in again? 

Adam barely had time to knock before the door was opened, the waifish ageless Persephone on the other side. 

“Please, come in Adam,” She said as if she knew what he had been thinking, stepping aside to allow him to come in. It was an effort to not look back out to Ronan’s car, but he still felt the presence of the other with him. It was embarrassing how quickly he was coming to rely on it when he prided his independence so much. Persephone waited at the door a moment longer, looking back to the car when Adam didn’t. “He may as well come in too… but I suppose if you’re certain…” 

Airily, she closed the door and gestured to the stairs. 

“Blue’s in her room. It’s not time yet for you to speak to me, but please don’t keep us waiting when it is,” Persephone didn’t deign to clarify on that statement, heading into the kitchen with a wave of her hand. Adam was curious, but if he didn’t do this now he feared he never would. 

He held tight to his connection with Ronan as he climbed the stairs. The Fox Way house was so… busy. Every surface was bursting with pattern, with texture. Each smell was layered on top of other layers, none ever cleared away, just covered again, food and spices and herbs of generations. Every step brought a symphony of sounds from the aging home only a fraction of which were perceptible to the human hearing. He kept drawing his mind back to being in Noah’s nondescript room which at the time had seemed so overwhelming. It was nothing compared to this and at the time he had desperately needed Ronan insisting Adam focus on him, on just him to help block it out.

While it was not the whole reason, it made sense why Gansey was so terribly fascinated with the house and Ronan so distasteful of it. 

Just getting to Blue’s door and knocking was an ordeal. 

When she answered it, she still smelled of wildflowers - it was an even clearer scent than before, still dressed in the baggy but artfully shredded clothing of the day, hair loose instead of pulled back with two dozen clips in an attempt to keep it in check, her lips discolored from biting them throughout the day. 

She was so beautiful. 

At the back of his mind, a gagging sound. _Thanks_ Adam thought sarcastically. 

“You’re awake,” Blue gasped, reaching out to Adam to pull him into an embrace he didn’t pull away from though he only barely returned it. He let himself wonder what it would be like to try and keep this up. They might manage for a little longer, but no matter how how Adam tried to work it out, there was no way this could end between them but badly if they kept trying. 

He still wanted it, wanted something all his own untouched by every terrible thing in his life.

Except Gansey had to have told her what happened, how he had been put in a life or death situation where Ronan was forced to change him. So now she knew that as well.

Maybe under other circumstances, in another universe, he wasn’t shot by his father that night. He lived on, still human, and she would not know why his home was not a home but a place meant for leaving, and he could have it. Have this. Have _her_. He consoled himself with that. 

“Blue… we need to talk. Can I come in?” 

They were alone on the second floor for now, and privacy was not something allowed in a psychic house or while sharing a psychic connection with another person, but going into her room and closing the door gave them the illusion of it and that was important. Blue sat on her bed where a couple textbooks were spread out along with a notebook she had been writing in. She pushed them aside in clear offer of making space for him to sit there as well, which he took. Silence fell for a moment between them, Ronan’s commentary fallen silent as well in Adam’s mind to help with the sense of privacy as faulty as it was. Maybe even he was genuinely attempting to not listen to Adam’s inner turmoil.

“You’re calling it off, aren’t you?” Blue asked, breaking the silence first. Leave it to her to figure it out. Adam looked away briefly before he met her gaze.

“I am. I’m sorry. It’s not that I don’t care, I _do_ , I just… I’m going to have to learn a whole new way to _be_ and I don’t want to put you in a position where I could hurt you,” Adam explained, tried to sound as calm and even about it as possible. It was true, though he wasn’t clear on what kind of pain he meant. There was the obvious, which Blue latched onto.

“I’m not helpless, you know. I can take care of myself,” she scoffed, tugging at a strand of her hair but fearlessly meeting Adam’s gaze. She had been intimidated by none of them, even Gansey and Ronan, even after learning what they were. What Adam was now, too.

Adam smiled.

“I know. That’s why I’m trusting you to do that.” Adam reached out to gently take Blue’s hand between his own. She felt so _warm_ , and though he had only fed a couple hours earlier he could still feel the hint of that hunger returning. Blue smelled so good, after all. 

He squeezed her hand, then let it go. 

“Thank you for giving me a chance Blue,” Adam finished, soft and sad.

It was that vulnerability that disarmed her, had always disarmed her with Adam. She tucked her knees up against her chest and rested her chin on them, confessing what she had been wary of doing so for weeks and weeks now.

“... I have a curse, you know. When I kiss my true love, he’ll die,” it seemed so easy to say now that Adam was in no danger of that. So stupidly easy. She had already told Gansey after all, why bother hiding it from Adam? It seemed silly out in the open. 

His smile took on the melancholy laced in his voice. 

“Did you think that could have been me?”

“I don’t know,” Blue confessed honestly. “I wanted it to be.”

It was a strange thing to find flattering maybe, that someone wanted you to be at risk of death from a curse. It explained so much though. Why she refused to kiss him, to even come close to it.

It was a flattering feeling, to think that in another life maybe he would have been her true love. 

“I have to go. Lynch is teaching me how to - to hunt,” At Adam’s words Blue’s face was all disapproval, and Adam half expected to hear a scoff from Ronan’s end. “Can we still be friends, do you think?” 

He wanted to believe he hadn’t ruined it, and Blue’s disapproving face shifted to fully offended. 

“Oh, _you_ can just _leave_! How _dare_ you think I’m going to be so petty as to throw you all away because you dumped me!” 

Though she got up to push Adam out the door, there was a smile on her lips she couldn’t hide. 

 

Returning to the BMW, Adam felt lighter than he had in some time. One burden off his shoulders - not that Blue had been a burden. He wasn’t sure what love was, if it was a real thing, but he wanted to believe it could have been felt between them. Getting into the sleek shark-nosed car, Ronan’s shitty trance music instantly assaulted his senses. The other vampire was still behind the wheel, engine idling to play his music. Ronan glanced at Adam when he opened the door, then looked away. 

“I tried not to listen,” Ronan explained. “As much as I could.” 

The mental link was, as Gansey had explained, a safety precaution. Turning it off, especially on Ronan’s end, was not exactly something it was designed to do. 

Adam was still thinking of Blue, could look up and see the light on still in her window, but that potential chapter of his life was a closed book. Adam slid into the car, buckled in and just let the feeling of being there wash over him - the bleed-off feeling of Ronan’s concern, his support, the catch of the thought that Adam in his car, dressed in his clothing, smelling like him with a whole night ahead of them was more intoxicating than Ronan had ever imagined (and that he _had_ imagined) … there was no place Adam thought he would rather be. 

“Cabeswater?” He asked, turning to meet Ronan’s eyes and smiling.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the woods, hunting doesn't go as planned, but Adam and Ronan learn their own way of doing things just the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you may have noticed the rating has gone from M to E THEY GET FRISKY IN THIS CHAPTER.

The forest that had seemed so silent before was positively bursting with life now visible to Adam’s heightened senses. He could hear every mouse as it darted through the tall grass, hear even the displacement of the wind from the wings of the owls as they swooped from branch to branch. The call of other night birds, faint before but now a symphony. The flash of colors of the scales of snakes coming out to feed under the safety of darkness. The smell of the rabbits, the deer, and above it all the glitter of stars overhead. 

“It’s incredible,” Adam breathed, letting the wonder fill his voice, and Ronan’s sharp smile turned almost gentle at it. 

“Come on, Parrish. We both need to eat,” Ronan replied, heading deeper into the wood.

The beginning of the night was spent as Ronan had told Gansey, learning to hunt. It seemed to share a lot of the same basics as hunting wild game as one would with a bow or a rifle, not that Adam had experience with either. It was about patience, about learning to be silent, to be still. Adam already had those skills under different circumstances, and they came easy to him to repurpose into the setting of the forest which seemed to breathe along with him when he chose to. Learning was something Adam Parrish prided himself on, so learning he was determined to do, though it was difficult to not let himself get distracted by Ronan. When they were noticed by the forest creatures, they rarely startled. They had to know Ronan was a predator, they gave him respectful space when walking by his still form, but they showed no fear when he approached them carefully. Deer, rabbits, small mice, all kinds of birds - they seemed to trust him, this strange predator who was familiar to them all. 

‘Hunting’ meant something different for different vampires - any kind of blood as it turned out would do - whether you hunted by actually running down wild animals, murdering the occasional human, took donations from willing providers in small enough amounts to not cause them harm, or just went to the Asian market on 3rd Street and bought the plastic container of pig’s blood. There were as many different ways to get what you needed as there were different people in the world.

Hell, grave robbing was applicable too if you were desperate enough to put in the work for it, dead blood was only an issue for indigestion if left to spoil too long. 

Gansey had flocks of the willing ready to donate whatever he needed - a little here and a little there that wouldn’t bring them harm but would keep him sated enough to never risk a hunger frenzy. Ronan prefered his hunting to be actually that. Adam knew both of these things, had fed Gansey a few times in the past and witnessed the savage grace of Ronan Lynch taking down a young buck that had already been injured during mating season. Watching it again, the way Ronan effortlessly stalked, waited, then moved in for an instant quick and painless kill with the crack of snapped bone, the way the fur shifted at his touch, Adam felt like he must have been blinded the first time. It had seemed so easy when Ronan had done it the first time Adam had seen, and yet the way he could appreciate it now made Adam think he had never witnessed grace before this moment. 

Ronan’s grin to Adam was the serrated edge of a knife before he bit into the neck of the deer and drained it dry within minutes. Adam wondered if Ronan looked that way when he had fed on Adam the one and only time. It was an idle thing at the back of his mind, and yet tossed like a bouncy ball from one of the quarter machines at Nino’s, Ronan caught it and tossed it back. The way Adam had smelled, the way he had tasted, Ronan had compared him to a faun a few times, actually, in the quiet of his own mind...

“You get that, Parrish?” Ronan asked, all casual, once he was done. He wiped his hand across the back of his mouth. Actled like he didn’t know very well how captivated Adam had been by his work, how he wouldn’t be able to forget it even if he wanted to. 

“Yes,” Adam replied, and Ronan nodded his head towards where the other deer had gotten to before moving off to head that way. Adam followed. 

Other vampires might have caught and killed one for Adam themselves, or at least caught the first one to make it easier, a little at the time like a mother cat teaching her kitten how to hunt. Not Ronan. He respected Adam too much to do anything other than throw him right into the deep end with little more than a single demonstration and to point to the weakened older stag well past his prime. Even that was less a matter of helping Adam and more a matter of helping the herd. Ronan Lynch hunted, but he was careful when he did - the old, the weak, the sick. He could catch and massacre the whole gang of them if he wanted to, but that would do little for a sustainable population. He stuck to the ones that the natural predators would target, culling the weak from the herd to make it stronger. 

Watching it was not a problem. Moving closer wasn’t a problem either. Adam was a quick study, he could handle this.

_Except…_

When he had heard Ronan breaking the neck of his own stag, Adam hadn’t been bothered. There was no hesitation to the watching. When it came time for him to act himself, though - his steps faltered, briefly unsure, and before he could make a recovery the deer turned to see him and it did _see_ him, and Adam saw a fear in there that he had seen reflected time and time again in the bathroom mirror of the small trailer. Panic lanced through him, all he could hear was the sound of Ronan breaking the neck of the deer from before but now all his other memories of fear were searching for connections.

It had sounded so similar to when Adam’s father had gotten angry once when Adam was in junior high school and grabbed his wrist, twisting it until one of those fragile bones in his arm had broken. Over and over the sound replayed in his mind, over and over the words of his mother telling him not to say anything other than it being an accident when she finally took him to the hospital for it.

It had been kind of his fault after all, hadn’t it? 

The remaining deer scattered, but Adam was in no position to give chase. Before he could quite sink to the ground, strong arms wrapped around his waist and held him up, his back against Ronan Lynch’s chest. He wanted the earth to open up and swallow him whole, his insecurities laid bare before Ronan who was surely seeing and hearing everything, observing and experiencing as Adam’s panicked mind caught in the obsessive loop of past injuries both physical and emotional. 

It had been awful enough when Gansey and Ronan found out that his father hit him, even logically knowing that his mother was wrong, that it wasn’t his fault didn’t change or lessen the shame that came from it. The shame of Ronan now surely having to realize he made such an atrociously useless thing that couldn’t even feed itself. Something that would have surely been better off left there in the dirt of the trailer park where he belonged. How foolish he had been to think he could ever stand alongside creatures like Gansey and Ronan Lynch and be their equal. Not in this lifetime, not in a hundred lifetimes. _‘You have shown me the sky, but what good is the sky to a creature who’d never do better than crawl?’_

Ronan’s breath was hot against his neck, arms holding Adam tightly as he led the other boy back until he was against a tree, until he could sit there against its bark with Adam pulled against him. 

“Listen, dipshit,” Ronan muttered against his skin, which seemed like such an odd opener to not have anything to follow it at first.

Except he did have something to follow it, when Adam let himself try to look outside of the obsessive pit of self-loathing, just for a moment turning his head up to the stars above. 

He saw himself. He saw himself in classes, where others controlled the conversation with their (deeply lacking) charisma and misplaced confidence, there was Adam shutting them all down with a quiet well-placed word. A correct answer that couldn’t be argued with, dominating them at their own game while refusing to take part in it and at the same time dismissing it as beneath him. 

He saw hands - his own hands, clever and graceful, finding the source of the problems with Gansey’s lovely and temperamental car and fixing them before either vampire could even understand what the problem was, all as if second nature to him. A language the others trained their best at but Adam was born into fluency of, connecting to the beautiful machines they both loved in a way they never could hope to. 

He saw his influence on Gansey - frustrating but understood as deeply needed. All that passion still within Adam shown with how he would stop at nothing for answers once proposed to him, but tempered by caution to turn it from raw potential into a fine blade of wit and intellect. 

He almost choked as he realized - he was seeing himself as Ronan was seeing him.

Adam couldn’t understand it, this strange and fascinating creature that Ronan saw when he looked at Adam, who seemed to bear so little resemblance on the person he saw in the mirror. He was divided - did he want to bask in the flattery of Ronan’s idea of him or force him to see exactly what he held in his arms? Ronan squeezed him tighter, the dry brush of his lips just barely felt against Adam’s neck. 

“I - I couldn’t - “ Adam started, they had come out here for Ronan to teach Adam to hunt, to feed himself, and he’d failed spectacularly at that. 

“Whatever,” Ronan muttered against Adam’s skin. “I’ll be your fuckin’ blood bank as long as you need.” 

He spoke the words so carelessly, but Adam could feel the tension there beneath the surface. It wasn’t just that Ronan didn’t mind - he enjoyed it, Adam feeding on him. Even with their shared mental connection that came with it, that would be maintained as long as Adam kept it up - to be Known was just as much of an thrill to Ronan Lynch as it was to Adam Parrish. If it was his choice, it would never end.

Shifting in Ronan’s arms which obediently loosened to allow for the movement, Adam twisted to sort of sit across his lap instead so he could look at Ronan in the moonlight that filtered down through the branches. Adam didn’t want to think about himself right then, Ronan had pulled him out of that spiral but he knew from experience how easy it was to fall back into. 

So he let himself be lost in the details instead. 

The sharp lines of Ronan’s cheekbones, caressed first with eyes then with the barest touch of fingertips. After that, the regal slope of Ronan’s nose. It was funny, Adam knew Ronan technically shared no ‘blood’ relation with his brother Declan, but they had the same nose. Ronan scowled as he heard that echoed through Adam’s thoughts, any comparison to his brother coming with the silent accusation of ruining the mood. Adam couldn’t help but smile the way Ronan’s thin lips made a perfect frown, his dark eyebrows lowering expressively. The soft lines of his eyelashes that framed such bright blue eyes - the same impossible blue of a butterfly’s wing. Ronan gave a low sound that was somewhere between a grumble and a growl, his emotions such a storm that for a moment Adam couldn’t figure out if he’d genuinely upset Ronan or not. Just for a moment, though. After that, Ronan was leaning in and kissing him, hard and wanting. 

It shocked Adam to stillness, the intimacy of it. Which was positively absurd, Ronan had drank his blood, turned him into a vampire like him, he had Ronan’s mind constantly at the edges of his own, he had Ronan’s blood in his body and had sucked on his fingers while sitting across his lap and had _known_ if he had said he wanted more right then he would have gotten it. All of that had been related to being a new kind of creature, though. This was an intimacy that was universal. An intimacy that Adam had always been able to want but never been allowed to have.

He was so hungry for Ronan in so many ways. 

Adam’s hands found Ronan’s shoulders, gripping hard at the leather jacket as Ronan’s arms tightened their hold around Adam’s waist. He tasted the blood of the deer on Ronan’s tongue, it tasted good but not as good as Ronan’s. Nothing ever would. Satisfaction and pleasure both rippled through their shared connection as Ronan caught Adam’s idle thought. Adam needed to feel more of Ronan’s skin under his hands. He needed Ronan’s hands to map his own body in return. The leather jacket Ronan wore was thankfully made of stronger stuff than was churned out nowadays, holding strong even as Adam fumbled to push it off of his shoulders. Ronan let out a frustrated growl into the kiss, exchanging letting go of Adam’s waist so the jacket could be removed only for his tongue to invade Adam’s mouth. There was another sudden rush of the taste of blood as his tongue caught on the edge of one of Adam’s fangs. Warmer, better, Adam sucked on Ronan’s tongue and Ronan groaned. 

“Parrish-” Ronan gasped when their lips parted, when he was pushed back just slightly. They only needed to breathe to speak and out of force of habit, but Adam couldn’t very well get Ronan’s shirt off while still kissing him. 

_That_ tore, a little bit, a testament to the newfound strength Adam had, to his starvation for touch that he was willing to overlook it. His touch on Ronan’s newly exposed skin was light, reverent. It was difficult to believe he was being allowed this, that someone as supernaturally compelling as Ronan Lynch would allow or even want for Adam’s bony hands on his skin-

Another rush of thought, of images. Not _bony_ , _elegent_. Every curve, every line memorized, beautiful and distracting. So sure of every movement, how often had Ronan let himself be driven to distraction in the Latin class he didn’t need to take but still attended as an excuse to watch Adam’s clever hands take their notes out of the corner of his eye, to memorize the way the muscles moved under the lightly freckled skin - so light that only Ronan who had paid so much attention to them could see the faint patterns of color, who had brought himself off more than once holding that image in his mind-

“Oh _God_ ,” Adam gasped, hands stalling just under Ronan’s collarbone, pressed flat against the skin slightly warmer than normal now thanks to having just fed. Thanks to Adam’s touch warming him. 

Ronan took his hand, careful and slow, never breaking eye contact with Adam as he brought Adam’s wrist up to his mouth and kissed it, sucked lightly on the skin just above the tendons. He was better with his teeth - he’d had the sharpened fangs for longer, so while he let them graze the thin skin of Adam’s wrist they never scratched it, never broke it, though Adam wasn’t certain that it would have made a difference at that point. Ronan’s touch already felt like he was burning a brand into Adam’s skin, it was better this way, better that Adam was already inhuman. Surely if they had tried this while Adam was mortal he would have died from it. His heart couldn’t take it. 

As opposed to Adam’s desperate frenzy, Ronan’s touch on Adam’s skin may as well have been an act of worship. He took his time, dry lips brushing against his palm, his knuckles, before drawing Adam’s thumb into his mouth to suck on it. Adam felt the brush of the sharp teeth there but nothing more. As if Adam was something positively holy. To Ronan, he was. Something, _someone_ , worthy of worship even when he was nothing more than a human. That changing him into a vampire, forcing his nature to change, had been an act of blasphemy but an even bigger one would be a world without Adam Parrish in it. 

Ronan Lynch had waited sixty years to find Adam Parrish and now that he had he could not conceive of letting the world go on spinning without Adam in it. 

Adam pulled his hand away from Ronan to kiss him again and again, small kisses segueing effortlessly into the next ones, easily an hour of lips and teeth and tongue and nothing else but hands in hair and clutching skin because breathing for them was optional and they could in fact do this forever if they wished. They had time to perfect it, perfect what they both enjoyed, and then Adam shifted in Ronan’s lap just a little closer and suddenly it was not enough, that light pressure needed to be more. Ronan’s hands slid away from Adam’s hair to grab at his ass instead, pulling him _closer_ and Adam moaned against Ronan’s mouth. They didn’t need words, a silent request if they could and then an eager _yes!_ without waiting for that thought to finish. 

Adam could hear the faint ripping of fabric with the haste for Ronan to get his jeans off of Adam, but they were Ronan’s jeans so it wasn’t like he could really be angry. _Ronan_ was pleased when Adam’s haste to get him naked yielded a similar result. The pleasure of being wanted, of knowing how badly you were wanted. Adam wanted to take more time, to better admire the hard lines of Ronan’s body, but the hunger for his touch didn’t allow for anything else. Back across Ronan’s lap, Ronan slid his hand between their bodies to take both of them into his hand. 

It felt so damn good Adam could have cried. 

“Come on, Parrish,” Ronan’s voice was rough, thick with need, and Adam kept a bracing hand on Ronan’s shoulder while the other went to entwine his fingers with Ronan’s around their erections, slow movements made slick with precome. Even with how dark it was, heightened senses let him see their flushed cocks pressed together, the silken skin of Ronan’s foreskin rubbing against Adam’s. He tried to warn Ronan, he wasn’t going to last long, he’d never had anyone else’s hands on him and barely his own, but all that came in return was encouragement from Ronan’s mind, his hand moving faster, hips rocking upwards. Ronan wanted to see it, to see Adam lose control of himself, to see what he looked like overcome with pleasure and if it was anything like how he’d imagined it. 

If there was the possibility of lasting at all before, it was wholly gone after that. The soreness of his throat was the only thing that let him know later that the shout of Lynch’s name had been something actually spoken aloud, his and Ronan’s hand now slick with Adam’s come. There was a buzzing in his ears, the whisper of the trees, everything felt _perfect_ in that moment. He was not so far gone though that he missed Ronan’s swearing, the way he shifted them to press Adam back against the mossy grass, pinning his hands to the ground to rut against Adam’s flat stomach and spent cock. He had a way of making his curses sound like poetry, like prayers, and all of them had Adam’s name scattered among them. In his mind was flash after flash of what he wanted to do to Adam, do _with_ Adam, to fuck him senseless and stay inside of him for hours, to suck Adam’s cock until he begged Ronan for release. Adam was drowsy and the hunger was returning, but he locked his legs around Ronan’s waist to buck back up against him, sent a clear image in return of Adam on his knees in one of Aglionby’s bathrooms sucking on Ronan’s cock like he wanted nothing else. 

Adam’s name was on Ronan’s lips when he came, rolling his hips against Adam until he was completely spent as well. 

Ronan was still in the afterglow, letting go of Adam’s hands, pressing his face against Adam’s neck and making drowsy contented sounds while Adam traced the intricate pattern of dark lines on Ronan’s back. Letting himself think on it, Adam thought that he wanted to do that since he first saw the hooking beak-like designs peeking out from the collar of Ronan’s shirt. 

He was getting hungry again. 

“Mmf. Go ahead.” Ronan murmured against Adam’s skin, rolling his shoulders just slightly. Not enough to shake Adam off, just enough to get the knots forming out of the muscles. “Just fed, m’fine. Eat up.” 

As long as Adam needed, as long as Adam _wanted_ , Ronan would just eat twice as much so Adam could feed off of him. It was no burden, but a privilege.

Besides, he could get at least one good ‘eating for two’ joke out at Gansey’s expense.


End file.
